Burdens

Sunday, March 21, 2010

After a tortuous beating and humiliating mocking, the Roman soldiers led Jesus to his crucifixion. Jesus must have been physically exhausted as he set out for Calvary on that Friday morning. John tells us that Jesus carried his own cross, probably the horizontal beam which may have weighed as much as 100 pounds. The other Gospel accounts tell us that at a certain point during the one third mile trip Simon of Cyrene was forced by the Roman soldiers to carry the cross. We know very little about Simon. Was he in Jerusalem to observe Passover? Was he a bystander who knew Jesus? Was he a sympathetic Jew? Was he even a Jew? We just don’t know much about him, yet we know he was an ordinary man pressed into act of service. Instead of being an observant bystander, Simon of Cyrene came to be known for carrying Jesus’ burden. Instead of watching at a safe distance, Simon was forced into action. Simon stepped into the road. He took up the cross and followed Jesus. What a moving and powerful image! And what an example for us!

Galatians 6:2 instructs: “Bear one another's burdens.” Simon was bearing Jesus’ burden when he took up the cross. Mother Theresa had this same passion for carrying the burdens of others. Known as the “Saint of the Gutters” and living with the poorest of the poor, she saw Jesus in everyone she met. She wanted to lift their burdens and said, “Serve and love one person at a time. God does not want us to love crowds of people; that is an impossibility. He wants us to love Him in every single person we meet, when we meet that person.”

How many opportunities do we have to go from bystander to suffering servant? How many times do we try to hide in the crowd instead of stepping out in service like Simon? How often do we love Jesus “in every single person we meet” like Mother Theresa? How often do we share in another’s burdens?

Who in your world is burdened today? What is an act of sacrifice you can perform?